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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Time Crime, by H. Beam Piper This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Time Crime Author: H. Beam Piper Release Date: May 5, 2007 [EBook #18151] [This file was first posted on April 11, 2006] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIME CRIME *** Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's note. This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction Magazine February and March 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. TIME CRIME BY H. BEAM PIPER _First of Two Parts. The Paratime Police had a real headache this time! Tracing one man in a population of millions is easy--compared to finding one gang hiding out on one of billions of probability lines!_ Illustrated by Freas [Illustration:] ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION Kiro Soran, the guard captain, stood in the shadow of the veranda roof, his white cloak thrown back to display the scarlet lining. He rubbed his palm reflectively on the checkered butt of his revolver and watched the four men at the table. "And ten tens are a hundred," one of the clerks in blue jackets said, adding another stack to the pile of gold coins. "Nineteen hundreds," one of the pair in dirty striped robes agreed, taking a stone from the box in front of him and throwing it away. Only one stone remained. "One more hundred to pay." One of the blue-jacketed plantation clerks made a tally mark; his companion counted out coins, ten and ten and ten. Dosu Golan, the plantation manager, tapped impatiently on his polished boot leg with a thin riding whip. [Illustration:] "I don't like this," he said, in another and entirely different language. "I know, chattel slavery's an established custom on this sector, and we have to conform to local usages, but it sickens me to have to haggle with these swine over the price of human beings. On the Zarkantha Sector, we used nothing b
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